Second Volume of Remembering Simplified Hanzi Now Available

Remembering Simplified Hanzi 2, by James W. Heisig and Timothy W. Richardson, is the second of two volumes designed to help students learn the meaning and writing of the 3,000 most frequently used simplified Chinese characters. (A parallel set of volumes has been prepared for traditional characters.) The 1,500 characters introduced in Book 1 include the top 1,000 by frequency, plus another 500 best learned at an early stage. Book 2 adds the remaining 1,500 characters to complete the set.

January 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3655-9 / $29.00 (PAPER)

New Edition of Integrated Korean: Intermediate 1 Available

This is a thoroughly revised edition of Integrated Korean: Intermediate 1, the third volume of the best-selling series developed collaboratively by leading classroom teachers and linguists of Korean. All series’ volumes have been developed in accordance with performance-based principles and methodology—contextualization, learner-centeredness, use of authentic materials, usage-orientedness, balance between skill getting and skill using, and integration of speaking, listening, reading, writing, and culture. Grammar points are systematically introduced in simple but adequate explanations and abundant examples and exercises.

An accompanying workbook (forthcoming, April 2012), newly written, provides students with extensive skill-using activities based on the skills learned in the main text.

KLEAR Textbooks in Korean Language
January 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3650-4 / $31.00 (PAPER)
Published with the support of the Korea Foundation

Distributed for the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii

Family Torn Apart: The Internment Story of the Otokichi Muin Ozaki Family, edited by Gail Honda, is the gripping story of one Hawai‘i family’s World War II odyssey. Otokichi Ozaki, a Japanese immigrant, was a Japanese language school teacher, tanka poet, and anthurium grower and also a leader of the Japanese community in the city of Hilo on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. Based on letters, poetry, and radio scripts in the collection of the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, and translated here for the first time, this work traces Ozaki’s incarceration at eight different detention camps, his family’s life in Hawai‘i without him, their decision to ‘voluntarily’ enter Mainland detention camps in the hope of reuniting, and their subsequent frustration as that reunion bogged down in red tape and government apathy.

January 2012 / ISBN 978-0-9761493-1-6 / $26.00 (PAPER)
Distributed for the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i

Reflections on Vanishing Life in the Forests of Southeast Asia

Rattan is the common name for a diverse group of climbing palms found throughout Old World tropical forests. For centuries people have used them for binding, basketry, house construction, food, and numerous other non-market purposes; more recently the canes of some species have been gathered for the multi-billion-dollar furniture, handicraft, and mat-making industries. Thus rattan continues to be vital to the culture and economic well being of millions of cane collectors, laborers, and artisans throughout tropical Asia and Africa. The Nature and Culture of Rattan: Reflections on Vanishing Life in the Forests of Southeast Asia, by Stephen F. Siebert, explores this valuable forest product, the tropical forests on which it depends, and the societies that flourish by using and managing these remarkable plants.

A website (http://www.cfc.umt.edu/rattan/) includes additional photographs, suggested reading, and discussion topics.

January 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3536-1 / $44.00 (CLOTH)

The Okinawan Diaspora in Japan

Although much has been written on Okinawan emigration abroad, The Okinawan Diaspora in Japan: Crossing the Borders Within, by Steve Rabson, is the first book in English to consider the topic in Japan. It is based on a wide variety of secondary and primary sources, including interviews conducted by the author in the greater Osaka area over a two-year period. The work begins with the experiences of women who worked in Osaka’s spinning factories in the early twentieth century, covers the years of the Pacific War and the prolonged U.S. military occupation of Okinawa, and finally treats the period following Okinawa’s reversion to Japan in 1972. Throughout, it examines the impact of government and corporate policies, along with popular attitudes, for a compelling account of the Okinawan diaspora in the context of contemporary Japan’s struggle to acknowledge its multiethnic society.

January 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3534-7 / $55.00 (CLOTH)

Second Volume of Remembering Traditional Hanzi Now Available

Remembering Traditional Hanzi 2, by James W. Heisig and Timothy W. Richardson, is the second of two volumes designed to help students learn the meaning and writing of the 3,000 most frequently used traditional Chinese characters. (A parallel set of volumes has been prepared for simplified characters.) The 1,500 characters introduced in Book 1 include the top 1,000 by frequency, plus another 500 best learned at an early stage. Book 2 adds the remaining 1,500 characters to complete the set.

January 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3656-6 / $29.00 (PAPER)